Melissa A. Fabello

It might take years before you can hold a cupcake in your hand and not nearly have a panic attack.

Being a person with a presence on the Internet is . . . weird. It fills your life with a lot of — well — weirdness. Being a feminist with a presence on the Internet is even worse – besides the general weirdness, there’s also a lot of backlash.

Dirty talk takes practice, but practice makes perfect. And watching your partner orgasm over video is almost as satisfying as it is in real life. I promise.

Right now, today, as of writing this, I identify as queer. But I didn’t always.

And so I slid the scale to the back of my closet, started freely eating doughnuts when I craved doughnuts, and simply donated the jeans that stopped fitting instead of holding out hope for them.

And as much as I’m a Swifty, I’m a feminist first (a white one, by the way, at that), and I’m not here for any kind of feminism that would excuse, for instance, Taylor’s misunderstanding that race is irrelevant in pop culture politics (a la the feud with Nicki Minaj that never was).

So you’re on a diet, and you’re really pumped about it. You truly, honestly believe that you’re—say—“getting your body back” post-partum (that’s a harmful concept) or improving your fitness a la the latest technological tracking device (that’s also a harmful concept). And while I think we need to throw a lot of these ideas in the trash, I’m also understanding of how diet culture makes you believe that these are good things – things, in fact, to brag about.

". . . guess what! Despite, again, what the media tells you, breasts come in a huge variety of shapes! Most natural breasts are affected by gravity and seem to sag a little bit, rather than perking up like they might in a bra. Most nipples fall downward (so, ya know, potential babies can reach them), rather than face forward."

I was jealous of the dog. “That dog gets to be so thin,” I tried to explain, tearfully, to my partner, “and it doesn’t even have to try. I’ll never be that thin.”

And it’s that last one that really irks me: that most people — and especially most women’s — new year’s resolutions center on dieting and weight loss as the key to happiness.